Jun 11
9
Working With Smaller Churches
According to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research which has several statistics regarding United States church sizes as measured by attendance.
http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts/fast_facts.html#sizecong
Approximate Distribution of U.S. Protestant and Other Christian Churches by size
(excluding Catholic/Orthodox)
| ATTENDANCE | # OF CHURCHES | WEEKLY WORSHIPERS | PERCENT |
| 7-99 | 177,000 | 9 million | 59% |
| 100-499 | 105,000 | 25 million | 35% |
| 500-999 | 12,000 | 9 million | 4% |
| 1,000-1,999 | 6,000 | 8 million | 2% |
| 2,000-9,999 | 1,170 | 4 million | .4% |
| 10,000-plus | 40 | .7 million | .01% |
| TOTALS | approx. 300,000 | approx. 56 million | 100% |
Many of us sound consultants deal with the small end medium Churches that serve 94% of the church going attenders on a given Sunday. Most of these churches do not have the funds for many of the audio and technical solutions and ideas seen in many of the magazines and on-line resources that serve the market. Yet, they do need assistance and can make great improvements to their sound quality within a reasonable budget and guidance from many of us lower budget, yet knowledgeable sound consultants.
Let’s look at an example.
A southeast Wisconsin Church, Mt. Zion Christian Church, had been living with an antiquated speaker system that approached 20+ years in age. The fact that the system served them this long speaks well of the technical folks there that kept the system running and useful for this length of time. However, as their contemporary worship style continues to evolve, the limitations of the system were becoming obvious and they identified a need to make an investment for the future.
They contacted us and we arranged a visit. We have worked with them on a few minor items in the past, but it was several years since we last visited. Now, isn’t it true that when you walk into a church, sometimes the areas of improvement are obvious.
This is true to most churches we consult with that are this size or smaller. It does not take any of the latest “tools” to identify items, that within a reasonable budget, can make a huge improvement in sound quality. Could various audio measurement tools be used to analyze the acoustical space and identify the best system? Of course, but then our (the consultant) hourly fees would be higher, our time spent on the project would be higher and our design, while better, may not be achievable by most churches of this size. This may be one of those 80/20 areas. We can realize a large (80%)sound quality improvement by attacking the “obvious” issues. That last 20% improvement can be costly and out of range of many budgets.
Recently, we discussed some ideas with Jon and Stephen at Mt. Zion, identified their most important requirements regarding sound coverage, worship style, needs for special events (like youth concerts), possible speaker placement and related visual considerations. Jon agreed to take some measurements of the sanctuary (an octagon) and we agreed to have several design options available to them in a few weeks. We also asked the sensitive question, what is your budget? Cudo’s to Mt. Zion that they had a budget of $15,000 for a new speaker system (main speakers, subwoofers, amplifiers, speaker management and us).
Since we mainly deal with smaller churches, part of saving money is that the church agrees to run cables, fly speakers, etc. based on our design. We provide drawings, the design details, prices of all gear, any special info such as flying guidelines, equipment sizes and weights etc. along with pointers from past experience. We usually offer several options at various price points that meet, beat or sometimes slightly exceeds their budget.
Without going into great detail, Mt. Zion’s new system consists of four bi-amped Yorkville CU15’s (left and right two speaker clusters) and two JTR Growlers, all flown and powered by QSC PLXII amplifiers with a DBX Driverack 260 managing the whole system. The budget also allowed for a Furman power sequencer system (PS8R at FOH, Powerlink and MP-20’s at the amp rack area).
Jeff from JTR speakers hand delivered the subs and assisted in making sure they were hung appropriately.
We (mainly Brian) handled the Driverack 260 settings – EQ, delay, crossover, and parametric EQ. Again, due to budget, the 80/20 rule, and the incredible ears of Brian (spent 4 years at Columbia College of Chicago), the system sounds great after several hours of adjustments, playing various music styles, sitting in various areas, and using the very technique described by Dave Rat in the June Issue of Live Sound International and taught by Jack Alexander at Columbia.
For this system, they came below budget as far as the system cost and our fee. They did all of the installation themselves other than terminating cables and final connections. Since they did so much themselves, our fee was less than 8% of the cost of the gear itself. Also, since we don’t sell gear but just direct them to a low price vendor (usually the Kenosha Music Center Inc, where Brian works one day a week) or directly to the manufacturer (like Jeff at JTR Speaker), there is no “middle man” markup. The customer gets about as much value for their dollar as possible.
It sounds like (pun intended) that Mt. Zion is very happy with the new speaker system. We will be arranging some sound training sometime in the near future with them and whenever we revisit a church we did sound improvements for, it is always rewarding to see how they are serving the Lord with the equipment and how many people hear the Gospel message through the spoken word and music.
And that is what the sound/media ministry is all about!